Puzzle Pieces
by GeoFount
Summary: Where I house me drabbles!
1. Tracing Footsteps

**Title:** Tracing Footsteps  
**Genre:** General/Vignette  
**Pairing:** One-sided Kouga/Kagome kinda  
**Word Count:** 157

It always started in the winter, in the hour when the snow had already fallen and was continuing to fall, and everything was white and crystal clear for him to bear witness to. In this pellucid bubble of introspection, he imagined himself and his life and everything about himself that made him what he was.

And the snow. The snow had a way of revealing all secrets. It exposed every footstep, showed every eye that came upon it the path that had been chosen and followed.

Sometimes he felt like a snowflake, tumbling and falling without will or reason to crash onto the padded snow of unrequited love and mikos that loved everything and everyone but did not love _him_.

Sometimes Kouga just didn't like the snow at all. But he was incapable of hating it or even avoiding it.

His footprints would give evidence of the path he had chosen, whether it be right or wrong. The snow would make sure of that.


	2. Wishing for Panacea

**Title:** Wishing for Panacea  
**Rating:** G  
**Genre:** General/Introspective  
**Pairings:** Inuyasha/Kikyo, little Inuyasha/Kagome  
**Word Count:** 163

**-**

**-**

**-**

Occasionally, he wishes she would smile more. Which is odd, because she never smiled much before so he's not sure why he she would smile now or why he even wants her to. Except, perhaps, maybe, it would make him feel better, he thinks. Make him feel better about the tragedy that befell both of them, costing his heart to be pinned by a fatal mistake (later to be dissolved by the hand of that returned failure) and her spirit to sink into bitterness and fury (later to be restored to a mockery of a body – clay and ashes and bone).

After all this time, he hasn't forgotten the way she smiled. It had always been slow and serene, like snow falling. It wasn't like Kagome. Kagome, who smiled for no reason, and was like a sun rising and hovering in the sky. She smiled simply because she enjoyed living and enjoyed being alive.

Occasionally, Inuyasha wishes Kikyo would smile like that too.


	3. This Decaying Hand of Time

**Title:** This Decaying Hand of Time  
**Genre:** General  
**Pairings:** None  
**Word Count:** 614

-

-

-

She realized it when she was seven. Or eight. By this time she had forgotten how old she was. Too much time had passed and she knew she was starting to forget, so it took her by surprise when the realization hit her.

_I couldn't possibly have forgotten_, she thought to herself. Forgetting was to disgrace the family and she would never, ever do that. _It had simply slipped my mind for a time_, she convinces herself and around her she pretends that the decaying ruins of her home do not symbolize her disintegrating memory.

At the age of seven or eight, as she sits in front of the dusty cracked mirror of her dilapidated room, she realizes her hair wasn't the way it should be. It was still in pigtails. Two fluffy, black pigtails perched on her head like twin rainclouds.

_They should be one_, she thought. _Not two._

And combined. A braid.

In the cobwebs of her crumbling memory, she recalls her brother. The lucky one with hair. Not the other brother, not that naked molerat. She could barely remember that brother anymore.

But she does remember the other brother – the one with hair – and as she remembers him, she recalls other things. Her father and mother, and the ritual that had brought her brother from boyhood to manhood. The day he had let down his own hair and woven it to match his father's.

How old had he been? Seven, eight? She can't remember. Small details like that have faded into broken shingles and cracked windowsills, unuseable and beyond repair by her hands.

She remembers how long and shiny his hair had been though, beautiful and powerful in it's ebony strands. He was anger and wrath, and his hair matched him. Their hair always matched them. It was part of the family tradition. The other brother, the bald one, had been an anomaly. Maybe that was why he had been so stupid and died so easily.

She runs her fingers through her own pigtails and looks around her.

_There is noone here now. _

No one. No one there among the ruins to take down her rainclouds and fulfill the ritual she had seen her brother go through. No one there to create her braids and carry on the family tradition. No one there that is, except for a runt dragon sleeping in the corner, but she knows he is incapable of doing it. He is too small and too unimportant. She doesn't think he even has thumbs, though she's not sure because she's forgotten.

She could try herself but somehow she feels that would be morally wrong. It would shame the family name and that is something she would never, ever do.

So she lowers her hands and tells herself she'll do it when she's older and wiser, when she's old enough to hold the name Queen of the Thunder Beast Tribe and old enough to make her own decisions and traditions.

_It's only hair after all_, she tells herself convincingly.

Inside her rotting stronghold, Souten tries to add one more recollection to the shambles of her anamnesis. Tries to allow, even encourage, her crumbling memory to take it away like so many other thoughts and images of a time when she had a family and everything wasn't falling apart under the hand of decaying time. But it's ebony strands coil around her and she cannot shake it.

In the dusty reflection of her cracked mirror, she sees herself and her twin rainclouds. She tries to pretend that they are braids instead of pigtails and attempts to ignore how she pricks herself on her hair, the sharpness of memory.


	4. Wood and Clay

**Title:** Wood and Clay  
**Genre:** Romance  
**Pairing:** Kikyo/Bokusenou (The tree spirit dude - not Goshinboku ;)  
**Rating:** G  
**Word Count:** 180

Kikyo never thought she would fall again. But when she found him at the edge of the woods, she had been unable to leave. And it bothered her, just a little. Sometimes she wondered, sitting dreamily in his shade like some sort of tree nymph, why she stuck around at all.

Maybe it was because he was soft spoken. Or maybe because, when he did speak, he spoke with a rare innate authority. Or maybe it was because he was so wise, wiser than she, which was hard to find. Or maybe it was because he knew how it felt to be alone. Knew what it was like to experience eternity.

Or maybe it was because she knew he wouldn't leave her for some cheap copy. Or, to be more accurate, couldn't but Kikyo didn't mind herself with that tiny detail. He was here to stay and that was all that was important.

Bokusenou never promised her heaven or hell. In fact he never promised her anything at all, so she can never be disappointed.

And, maybe, that was the best part of all.


	5. A Mother's Love

**Title:** A Mother's Love  
**Pairing: **None

**Rating:** G  
**Genre:** General  
**Word Count:** 151

VII.

Mrs. Higurashi periodically had to convince herself that she was a good mother. For she knew no sane woman would allow her child to travel back in time to a world full of evil monsters and unsanitary conditions where antibacterial soap hadn't even been invented yet. But there went Kagome down the well again with that strange eared boy and Mrs. Higurashi let her go with a big warm smile and not a word of protest.

There would be days, even weeks, when Mrs. Higurashi wouldn't have any way of contact with her child. She would know nothing about what her daughter was doing at all; where she was, who she was with. But Mrs. Higurashi always let her go. Because mothers are supposed to protect their children and Mrs. Higurashi always felt that she was protecting something far greater than Kagome's physical well-being.

She was protecting her daughter's heart.


	6. Soul Food

**Title: **Soul Food

**Rating: **G

**Genre: **General

**Pairings: **None

**Word Count:** 200

IV.

Kikyo misses the taste of things. She misses the warmth of hot bread, the sweetness of berries, and the tartness of tea. She misses the feeling of a full belly. Most of all, Kikyo misses having taste buds.

She tried to eat once. Forced the food down her stale mouth and waited for the wonderful taste to come. It never did and later she twitched uncomfortably before being forced to physically remove it from herself. A clay body was never designed for eating.

Her soul catchers bring her souls to feed upon instead, and she is obligated to change her mind. A clay body was designed to eat one thing.

She pretends not to notice the taste and tries to make up for it by thinking of what horrible lives those girls must have had to die so young. What better way to release them from illness and famine than death? That was how she had escaped, right?

Kikyo then wonders how a clay heart can hurt.

After she's healed a daughter's injured foot, the grateful father leaves her a generous plate of food. Kikyo says nothing but she knows the gesture is futile.

It will feed nothing but rats.


	7. All Your Little Secrets

**Title:** All Your Little Secrets  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** General/Introspective/Romance  
**Pairing:** One-sided Ayame/Kouga, implied one-sided Kouga/Kagome  
**Word Count:** 142

I.

She holds his secret like so many flower petals in her breast.

Even when he whisks away out of her lair without a word to visit the grave of his clandestine fetish (which isn't nearly so obscure as he thought but she holds that secret as well, for his sake) she is silent and clasps his secret close to her heart, a salve for a hidden wound.

She knows deep inside that he remembered his promise to her at their first meeting and she knows that he lied to her. And she also knows that she is nothing to him but an analgesic. Because he had lost everything _he _had loved, and now he just needs someone to love _him_.

But she embraces his secret, regardless of the ache. Because she understands that everyone has them.

She's got one too.

His.


	8. A Little Fun and Games

**Title: **A Little Fun and Games

**Genre: **General

**Pairings: **None

**Word Count: **196

I.

Bankotsu did not like games as a child. He found them puerile and meaningless, and he often sent one or two fellow village children home crying with the gift of a bloody nose when they tried to get him to join. Bankotsu had a hard time finding things to amuse him back then.

It wasn't until he sunk his knife into the neck of a beggar and felt the warm blood seep onto his hands that he found the only game he truly liked.

When the village headman banished him for his deed, Bankotsu played a little game with him as well, and the next morning he was forced to flee for his life from the angry villagers.

Then he met Jakotsu, who liked games too, and it was all uphill from there.

They try to play friendly games with the village people they come across. They play 'you're it', tag, and hide-and-seek, but the villagers always lose, sometimes before the game is even finished, which disappoints Jakotsu and makes Bankotsu laugh.

A few years later, Bankotsu gets an arrow through the chest. But he smiles anyway, because that's the game he likes to play.


	9. The Unselfish WishMaker

**Title:** The Unselfish Wish-Maker  
**Genre:** General  
**Rating:** G  
**Pairings:** None  
**Word Count:** 154

I.

It was always being used one way or another, a servant to the wishes of whatever master picked it up. There was no limit to the desires granted. There were no three wishes and _poof gone_. It wasn't that lucky.

Nor did it have any say in who, what, where, or why. It could not decide what urges would be granted or denied. Whether or not the desire of its power was for evil or good was picayune, for it had no say in that either. It was only there to serve, the silent servant to a myriad of misunderstanding and ungrateful masters.

If it could speak, it would ask for death. Or more accurately destruction, since it had no flesh on which to die upon. But _its _wish will never be granted. The Shikon shard wasn't designed that way. It was made for others besides itself and others only, the unselfish wish-maker.


	10. Mating Season

**Title:** Mating Season  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** General/Humor  
**Pairings:** Shima/Medicine Vendor  
**Word Count:** 271

I.

Shima was with child.

Upon hearing the news, she was overjoyed, full of smiles and twittering goodness and splendid ideas about different outfits she could dress the baby in.

Shima's father, on the other hand, was furious. "Who's the father?" he demanded, pushing the many clothes out of his way. "Is it that monk?"

"Oh, no, father!" Shima cried. "Not Miroku-sama."

"Then who! Who did this to you?"

"The rain!"

Shima's mother burst into tears, blubbering through her sobs about insanity and how Shima had always been such an odd, odd girl.

"The rain?" Shima's father said in confusion.

Shima sighed wistfully and draped herself across her bed, limbs askew, kimono twisted.

Her father's face turned red at her undignified posture.

"Yes," she breathed, caught in memory. "The rain."

He had been such a tall, handsome man, with a dazzling rich smile that had captivated her instantly. He had been dancing in the rain and when he invited her to join him, telling her of some sort of celebration involving mosquito mating season or something, she had been unable to resist his charms.

They had made love in the rain. Softly, gently, while the thunder rolled around them. And then, when it was all over, he bit her neck and disappeared. Shima never saw him again.

Shima's father glared at the dreamy look on his daughter's face, bristling. "There's only one way to solve this," he said assuredly. "We must find the one man who can cure her."

"Who?" Shima's mother sniffled.

Shima's father grinned and tapped the side of his head at his brilliant idea. "The Medicine Vendor."


	11. The Greatest Festival on Earth

**Title: **The Greatest Festival on Earth

**Rating: **PG

**Genre: **General/Drama/Angst

**Pairings: **Tiny bit of implied Miroku/Sango

**Word Count: **340?

I.

Miroku's father died. Standing in the middle of the field, he opened his hand for his last, final act. The wind picked up, strong and fast, a mini hurricane in his palm, and great booming flashes of light, brighter than any sun, lit the sky. When it was all over, Miroku's father was gone, disappearing like the magician he was. It had been quite the spectacle - horrible and breathtaking like magic acts were supposed to be.

When the Kazaana appeared in Miroku's hand, he knew the magic act had been passed onto him; the festival was his to carry on. He had to act fast in order to make sure his was just as spectacular as his father's. He was living on borrowed time after all.

So Miroku lived his life just as if it were a festival. Full of fun, beautiful women, money, crafty thievery, and deceit. Wonderful, wonderful things.

One day, he met a miko and a hanyou on a grand quest, and he thought _what a magnificent show this will make._

He followed them and they absorbed him into their lives and their own festivals, so much more beautiful than his but just as tainted with tragedy. He found all the right elements to make his festival a grand masterpiece: battles and enemies and misfortune, friends and hope and love.

Miroku had thought he might get a fairy-tale happy-ending to the greatest, most tragic festival on earth - _his _festival - after he had joined them.

But everything beautiful must end and time was running out.

Standing in a field, he inspects his growing Kazaana. The final act had come.

At least he'd go out with a bang.


	12. Monsters

**Title:** Monsters  
**Genre:** General  
**Pairings:** None  
**Word Count:** 300

I.

At age five, her mother tells her, "You will be special. You will be good. You will be different from everyone in the world."

She is no seer, nor does she make predictions. They are simply words, words spoken from mother to child to make sure that child understands just how very important they are to her.

Kikyou believes her regardless.

Thunder races across the sky and she crawls whimpering into her mother's sheets. Her mother comforts her, strokes her hair, tells her there's no such thing as monsters.

Kikyou believes her.

At age seven, she kills her first youkai.

Kikyou's no longer afraid of thunder or the eerie feelings she gets. She's careless and full of impudence, and the spider bites her on the ankle when she gets to close.

Just as carelessly, Kikyou strikes it and the spider burns in a flash of light.

Kikyou doesn't believe her mother anymore. She also doesn't like spiders very much.

At age ten, Kikyou's father dies. She is lanky and uncoordinated, and she isn't fast enough before the spider slashes into him.

Her mother, pregnant and a widow, weeps and tells her, "You're a miko. You've been blessed with a wonderful gift."

Kikyou isn't sure what that means but she believes her anyway.

At age nineteen, Kikyou has a younger sister she's raised herself, and she helps her make arrows and carries her bow. Kikyou isn't allowed to tell her she's special or important.

The Shikon no Tama gleams around her neck.

She has to hide her emotions now.

At age seven, Kaede is terrified of thunder and eerie feelings. She asks if monsters exist.Kikyou thinks back to her own mother and remembers everything her mother had said. She stopped believing her years ago.

"Yes," says Kikyou. "Monsters do exist."


	13. Forgiveness

**Title:** Forgiveness  
**Genre:** General  
**Pairings:** Implied Kagome/Inuyasha  
**Word Count:** 300

I.

_There is something about friendship that makes it so very unique and special._

_The constant ability to forgive._

II.

She's become an old woman.

Fifty years have passed between them.

She has grown, bloomed, passed her prime, and wilted into wrinkles.

He is still young and immature. He is still fifteen.

He calls her Baba to annoy her.

She forgives him for not growing up.

III.

"Baba," he growls.

She regards him calmly, unafraid. She's too old to be scared of death.

"What happened to your eye?"

She's tells him the truth because she's too old to be scarred of that either. "You tore it out."

He freezes. Is silent for a long moment.

"Oh," he says at last. He turns his back to her.

He doesn't say it but she hears him anyway.

_I forgive you_, she responds.

V.

He asks about Kikyou.

She tells him the truth. "She died."

He freezes. Is silent again. "Good," he says. "The witch finally died."

He's lying through his teeth.

She forgives him for it.

IV.

Kikyou escapes the laws of earth and is resurrected.

Kaede, always unafraid of the truth, hears it at last.

Still, she forgives Inuyasha.

Even if he can't forgive himself.

VI.

"I'm leaving now." He's human and fidgety, eager to get started on his new life.

The taijiya and monk had already left with the kitsune. Inuyasha is the last to go.

"Thank you for everything." He smiles. "Baba."

He says it affectionally.

She smiles back. "Go on. Kagome is waiting for you."

"I'm sorry." It is the first and last time he will ever say it aloud to her. "For leaving you alone."

"It's alright," says Kaede.

Inuyasha smiles again, the whole future ahead of him. For the last time, he disappears down the well.

Kaede forgives him for growing up too.


	14. A Frog's Love

**Title:** A Frog's Love  
**Genre:** Humor  
**Pairings:** One-sided Jaken/Sesshoumaru  
**Word Count:** 207

I.

Sesshoumaru was a tad disturbed. Which was saying a lot, because Sesshoumaru rarely got disturbed. He had seen all sorts of disturbing things: dead bodies, blood, zombies, swords that couldn't cut, boys that came back to life, even hanyou's.

An infatuated toad was something he wasn't ready for. Especially when he appeared to be on the receiving end of said infatuation.

It wasn't entirely new. Sesshoumaru had noticed it before. But it seemed to have escalated in the last few weeks.

Such as Jaken boisterously telling him how mighty and powerful he was, which Sesshoumaru was used to. But he wasn't used to the sexy Jaken had added to the list of his marvelous qualities. Not that it wasn't true but still...It was the principle of the matter.

Then there was Jaken telling Rin to do odd things, such as having her stick onions in her ear to cure earaches, to get his attention.

Sesshoumaru would, customarily, step on him but lately it were as though Jaken _liked _it.

Oh what the hell. He stepped on him anyway.

Under Sesshoumaru's foot, Jaken thinks how lovely it would be to kiss those cold, hard lips. But for now, he is satisfied with just kissing his feet.


	15. Root of All Evils

**Title:** Root of All Evils  
**Rating:** G  
**Pairings:** Past Inuyasha/Kikyou, implied one-sided Kagome/Inuyasha

I.

Dignity was the root of all evils. It gave the tragic flaw to the tragic hero, gave the tragic downfall to the tragic kingdom ruled by the tragic king, gave the tragic love to the tragic princess, so on and so forth tragedy, tragedy, tragedy. And _that_ was dignity. It was the tragedy that made the tragedy. There.

But yet, dignity is as important as water, as needed as air. Without it, you would be nothing but a sniveling coward, a worthless poltroon not worth kicking dirt over.

And that was the worst part about dignity. It made you so very, very strong when alone and so very, very proud of being strong while alone. It was what stopped you from begging, stopped you from crying, stopped you from falling into a hopeless wreck, stopped you from blemishing your self-image. It stopped you from totally giving yourself up to another.

Kikyo knew this lesson well. When her miko powers had first been discovered, she had been swept into a world full of aching dignity, force fed a doctrine of social regulations and restricting conduct that made her as pliable as marble, and in exchange for all that they had taken away from her, they gave her something to live for. Dignity.

And she hated it as much as she loved it. Dignity, pride, self-confidence, egoism, arrogance, whatever name you gave it you could not mask it. A poison by any other name would still kill you.

That's what Kikyou knew and that's what she believed.

II.

It wasn't until she met a new poison to purge her own that she felt an emotion beneath dignity that was worth the ignominy.

He was brass, rude, and ignorant. He spat brutal, uncaring words, made up lies to invoke her anger. He was a wild animal and the most undignified person Kikyou had ever met.

She loved him for it.

They came together, formed something that was beyond a friendship but less than a relationship, and were, somewhat, happy. They made a plan, a wonderful plan that would save both of them.

But Kikyou could never fully let go of her dignity. She could never fully give her trust to someone other than her herself. So she burned and fell and died.

Old habits do die hard.

III.

Reformed and recreated, she sinks from marble into clay, seizes the life she never had and holds it. Kikyou sheds responsibility like she does layers of skin.

_I am free now_, she thinks. Believes it. _Free to hate, free to love._

No longer is she satisfied with the love scraps that fall from Inuyasha's table to the ground like Kagome is. The hanyou barely has enough love for himself, much less other people.

She breaks the callouses off herself one more time. For the last time.

Kikyou sits outside heaven's door - not living and not dead but free to drift in between - and happens to like it there.


	16. A Charity So Appropriate

**Title:** A Charity So Appropiate  
**Pairings:** None  
**Word Count:** 250

I.

Gifts, Kohaku used to think, were special and endearing and the best way of showing how well you knew that person and their secret desires. Gifts, he surmised, were what people wanted but couldn't grasp on their own.

He brings white flowers to Sango, because she's too immersed in her training to attain girly things like that without breaking some unspoken rule of hers. She holds them under her nose and breathes in the womanhood she gave up.

He makes sweets for his father, because his father is not allowed to eat them. His father scolds him but, later, they sneak behind the house together. Under the hidden awnings they splurge and laugh themselves silly.

At age eleven, Kohaku's father tells him that he's bringing him on a youkai slaying as a present for all his hard work. Kohaku doesn't think he's right for slaying anything. But Kohaku knows his father is giving him what he cannot grasp on his own.

That's what gifts are for, after all.

II.

Kohaku used to remember. He used to remember all sorts of things. Death and blood and loss and all he wanted to do was forget but he _just can't._

Naraku touches him, chases all the bad memories away, wipes his mind clean of all sin and feeling.

Naraku strokes his vacant head and smiles. "Forgetting is a precious gift."

Kohaku nods and truly agrees.

Naraku gives Kohaku what he cannot grasp on his own.

That's what gifts are for after all.


	17. A Heroic Little Ditty

**Title:** A Heroic Little Ditty  
**Pairings:** None  
**Word Count:** 226

I.

The children came nightly, crawling over themselves and flooding his hut. "Tell us the story!" they cried.

In the past, when he hadn't possessed gray whiskers or a potbelly (he referred to it as being stout and sure), he himself would go present the heroic tale to the youngsters. But now it was his son who sang the tale, and Banzo was content to sit in the shadows and listen.

It was a wonderful ditty. A tale about a time when their people had been forced out of their homes by a ferocious mantis demon and the great and powerful dog demon who had come to rescue them. The children were held in awe as his son unraveled the tale, beating on drums and stamping his feet to add effects to his musical melody.

Banzo couldn't help but smile. To the children it was only a fairy tale. A silly little musical myth made up for their entertainment. None of this _really _happened.

His son was drawing to the conclusion of the melody. The great dog demon had slain the mantis and was off to return to his kingdom in the sky.

Banzo's smile widened. He hadn't, nor would he ever, correct them that the dog demon had in actuality been a hanyou.

They would never believe him. It was only a fairy tale after all.


	18. Perfect Little World

**Title: **Perfect Little World

**Pairings: **One-sided Shippo/Kagome, implied Kagome/Hojo

**Word Count: **351

-

At starts out five hundred years ago, when he is alone and hungry, and the old man believes him when he tells him he is a traveling monk named Miroku. Later, when he loses his concentration and pops out of his human disguise, he explains to the old man he is cursed. The old man believes him.

Probably because Shippo believes it himself.

When he runs into the beautiful princess he tells her he is a heroic samurai searching for a bride. He gets to spend several years in luxury. They have no children.

He becomes a traveling entertainer, until he falls into the trade business. Then he is a rich aristocrat from the America's. When the market goes sour, he is a apprentice pottery worker.

Shippo lives a thousand different lives and tells a million different lies.

What is truth anyway?

-

Miroku had told him, the day before the Kazaana had killed him and taken everyone else with him, that there was a difference between lies and white lies. White lies don't hurt anybody.

It seemed silly to listen to the advice of a dead man. Or maybe that was exactly why he listened to it.

Five hundred years have past. He has honed his skills to the point where he can sleep and not lose them. He has a new life, a new name, a job and hundreds of other things he doesn't really want.

When he wakes up in the morning, he sees a boy. Even mirrors buy his little lies. My perfect little gift, he thinks, is a lie itself.

-

Patiently he waits and he is on his 1,001 life, or white lie he has come to call them, when he finally sees her again.

At first, he thinks he is a horrible person for doing this. But then he thinks of the death and the tears, and the graves he had dug with her. And how the last time he had seen her come through the well, she told him about a man who had comforted her and whom she had come to love.

When she approaches him, she smiles shyly. "Hi! My name's Kagome. What's yours?"

He smiles at her and shakes her hand and buys into his white lie. "Hello," he says. "My name's Hojo."


	19. Here there

**Title:** Here there  
**Rating:** PG  
**Genre:** General  
**Word Count:** 239

-

It was inevitable really. After stretching herself between the two worlds for so long, it was inevitable that it happen.

_Here…_

Kagome cuts herself while slicing vegetables and Kagome cries out.

Mama applies an antiseptic and a band-aid. "You really should be more careful, Kagome" she scolds.

_There…_

The youkai's poison spit burns and Kagome hisses at the pain.

Sango uses a powder to counteract the poison. "You really should be more careful, Kagome-chan," she scolds.

_Here…_

Souta struggles with chemistry homework.

Kagome, patiently, shows him how it's done.

When he gets an A on his test, Kagome swells with pride.

_There…_

Shippo struggles with swinging his wooden sword.

Kagome, patiently, shows him how it's done.

When he swings the sword perfectly without her help, Kagome swells with pride.

_Here…_

Grandpa does a lot of crazy things. Like putting wards on the policeman who tries to give him a ticket.

Kagome apologizes for him and manages to stop him from getting arrested.

Grandpa only laughs about it.

_There…_

Miroku does a lot of crazy things. Like telling a village headman that his house is haunted just so he can hit on his daughter.

Kagome apologizes for him and manages to stop him from getting killed.

Miroku only laughs about it.

-

"You should go back to the future," says Inuyasha one day. "Your family lives there, don't they?"

"Really?" Kagome frowns than laughs. "That's funny, I thought they lived here too."


	20. Square One

**Title:** Square One  
**Pairing:** Implied Souten/Shippou  
**Rating:** G  
**Word Count:** 179

* * *

After the battle and the unspoken draw, she thought to herself, "_Starting over, that is what I must do."_

The house was in desperate need of repairing. She would need servants for that. That would be the first thing. The second thing would be to rebuild the weapon that had been passed down through the generations.

Her father had held it once, then her brother. Now she would be the one to hold it.

Next she would need a name. Not just any name, but a name that everyone would know and tremble when they heard it. And for that she would need to strike fear in their hearts of man. That would be the third thing she must do.

Silently, Souten folds the paper she has drawn his face on into tiny squares. She slides it and the crayons under the bed where it will stay.

She thinks it will stay there for a long, long time. It will wait but she won't forget about it.

She'll never forget.

Because starting over doesn't mean you leave everything behind.


	21. A Glorious Travesty

**Title:** A Glorious Travesty  
**Pairings:** None  
**Rating:** G  
**Word Length:** 250  
**Summary:** Sesshoumaru's pissed off, Inuyasha's having a good laugh. Irony never tasted so sweet.

* * *

"This is ridiculous."

Off in the corner, Inuyasha is laughing and snorting and clutching his sides. Sesshoumaru glares at him.

"This _isn't_ funny."

"I'm sorry." Inuyasha wipes the tears out his eyes. "It's just...you know...I didn't expect you to come back as...well, _that_." A stray twitter escapes his lips.

Sesshoumaru, throughly unamused, glares out the window. "I should _never_ have told you."

"You _didn't_ tell me. I found out myself."

Sesshoumaru digs his claws into the couch. "This is stupid," he seethes. "I used to be the strongest youkai in all of Japan."

"You've gotten fat too." Inuyasha frowns. "How'd you die anyway?"

"Egg beater."

"Egg what?"

It occurs to Sesshoumaru that Inuyasha, being the idiot he is, doesn't know what an egg beater is. "A weapon," Sesshoumaru lies swiftly. "Very strong, very tough. He died at the end too though."

"Oh..." Inuyasha laughs again. "I can't _wait_ to tell Kagome her cat is _you_!"

Sesshoumaru's eyes widen. If the girl found out she would never touch him again. No more ear or belly rubs. No more cat food. _Ever_. "Don't you dare, Inuyasha!"

"I so am!"

"If you do, I'll give you fleas!"

"You _don't_ have fleas."

"I'll get them and give them to you! And then you'll have to wash!"

"So will you!"

Sesshoumaru snorts. "Unlike you I actually pursue personal hygiene." He licks his leg to demonstrate.

Inuyasha pauses, scowling. "Fine," he growls.

But, as good measurement, he still pulls the fat cat's tail.


End file.
